The display of shoes for retail sales purposes, as well as the storage of shoes by a consumer, is often haphazard and totally lacking in organization. Many consumers simply store their shoes on a floor of a closet with no mechanical assistance whatever. More organized consumers may use door-mounted shoe racks or shoe bags, or may use floor-mounted shoe racks or shoe trees, to store their shoes. Although most retail stores continue to store most available pairs of shoes in a backroom, keeping them in individual boxes, many retail stores often make use of merchandising shelves to display samples of shoes which are either loose, or tied to one another, or boxed. Sometimes, the retail stores will suspend some styles of shoes from hangers.
As advantageous as the known techniques for merchandising and storing shoes have been, they are not altogether satisfactory when it is desired to display or store other styles of shoes, such as sandals, having toe separators, also known as pedicure slippers, such as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,151,801 and No. D-575,484. Such shoe styles have not heretofore been suspended from hangers, and, if attempted by the known hanger constructions, would not be readily frictionally gripped and held upright for display and storage purposes.
Accordingly, a need exists to display or store shoes having toe separators, and to produce a hanger for such purposes in an economic fashion.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The components of the footwear hanger assembly have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.